The Song of the Stars
by Leahelisabeth
Summary: The story of Thumbelina as it has never been told before.


**The full moon moved across the sky, making the shadows strange, at once softer and harder, bolder and shyer than the normal shadows of daytime. Things move deep in those shadows. Malicious or benign, can anyone tell? It is on nights like this that the Wubbles come out to play. Softly, they step out from their flower homes carrying armfuls of seeds, used to grow more Wubbles to dance in the enchanted, moonlit glade. They need no music but the stars and the rhythmic tramping of their own bare feet. The trees encircle the shady dale, allowing entrance to none but the whispering wind.**

**The Wubbles are tiny, no larger in size than a bumblebee. They live as light, shaped in form like little men and women, only brighter. They seem ageless, their hair untouched by frost and their faces unlined. Their faces are slender but not perfect. Their only beauty is the hope that dwells within. Tears should fall but rarely. Their only grief comes when they cease to change and grow. They scatter the invisible seeds of Elenil in the wind and water them until they grow. **

**For years they dwelt in their tiny grove, scattering seeds and dancing and each year, living a little less. Their whole lives were wrapped up in the growing of the flowers. The forgot the world around them and withdrew into the glade, allowing none to leave and forgetting the hope they bore.**

**One perfect night, in the very center of the glade there sprouted one tiny, pure, white flower. The Wubbles were very curious to see who it contained. They had flowers of red and blue, orange and yellow, purple and occasionally black, but never white. Even the oldest Wubble, Tiffie, could not remember a single white flower. It was smaller than the rest of the flowers but there was no doubt that it was Elenil and that it carried a Wubble.**

**The time came for the flower to bloom and then the time passed. Many of the Wubbles were relieved. It appeared the flower was Wubbleless and they had been afraid of the Wubble that would be born. The flower was so perfect, that Wubble would probably be perfect too. They did not want a perfect one who would shame them and perhaps prove to be a catalyst for change. They had slowly stopped changing and they were afraid of what would happen if they were forced to begin to grow once more.**

**Finally, the night of the full moon came again. One single, milky ray of moonlight tricked through the leaves and illuminated the little flower. As the bloom began to open, a pure, melodious sound began to rise. The Wubbles stood, entranced. When the blossom fully opened, there appeared the smallest, most perfect Wubble any of them had ever seen. She had long, soft, black hair and huge eyes, green as grass. The sound poured unchecked from her open mouth.**

**Wubbles are not born as human babies are. They are awakened in the flower at the moment of blooming with a clear understanding of life and their own purpose. No one names a Wubble, they are born with it in the same way they are born with a voice. No one knows where their purpose and their name come from, for they remember nothing before they are awakened.**

**Tiffie walked toward the newly awakened Wubble. "What is it?" She asked. "What is that sound?"**

**"It is music. I have learned to sing." The newest Wubble said in a pretty, little, clear voice. "My name is Elenlinde, Star Song." Tiffie smiled, knowing she was the one she had been waiting for to shock the Wubbles from their lives of increasing complacency.**

**"How do you know she is a real Wubble?" A strident voice echoed from the crowd, breaking the spell her song had laid upon their hearts. Another of the older Wubbles stepped forward. He had grown dark. He had not been changing and as a result, the light that should have been in his face was conspicuously absent. Their was an ugliness there that should never be present in the face of any Wubble. His cheeks were stained by the tears he shed as he danced alone. "Her flower was white. She comes to us with a name that has a meaning. None of our names have meanings. Then she sings us a song that draws us in and makes us forget how to breathe. She bewitches us. She is dangerous and cannot stay here in the grove."**

**"She could be the one," Tiffie cried. "She could be the one who can defeat hopelessness and desolation. We must not send her away. We would die."**

**"We are neither hopeless nor desolate. There is nothing she can do but place a standard of perfection that none of us can meet." Another voice called from the crowd. She was the most forlorn Wubble of all. Her face was white as salt. No light gleamed anywhere, not even from her eyes which had grown too hard even to cry.**

**"We are in danger of becoming stagnant; none of us have grown to pixie size for many moons. Many flowers were born Wubbleless this moon. We have stopped learning and we have stopped growing. We have almost stopped living. Elenlinde needs to teach us the song of the stars, else we cease to be." Tiffie spoke passionately, but it did no good. She was too late to change the minds of the Wubbles. Their fear was now much greater than their desire to change and live. Elenlinde was sent from the grove without a qualm.**

**It was raining outside, but not the soft, warm rain that watered the grove. It was cold and the wind whipped the chill deep inside Elenlinde's bones. It howled with a voice that was akin to her own, but horrible and much larger than anything she could ever imagine. The wind was altogether too much for her to fight against and she was swept far away from all she had ever known. A Wubble is not meant to exist outside the grove. Elenlinde felt a fading of soul that was not meant to be a part of the Wubble's experience. It was a sorrow beyond the expression of tears. And so the wind carried her away.**

**When morning came, the wind stopped. Elenlinde was lying next to a small feed trough. She could not even sense the grove anymore. She was irrevocably alone. She heard a sound from above her. She looked up and there was the rather large face of a young man floating above her. He had fiery red hair and his eyes were as blue as the dawn.**

**"What have we here? You are too small to be a pixie. You can't be a Farie, you have no wings. What are you little one?" A voice boomed. Elenlinde winced at the sheer volume of it. The young man lowered his voice and asked again.**

**"I am a Wubble." Although her voice was small, it was clear and bell-like. The young man could hear her perfectly.**

**"Come in. I would like my mother to meet you," he said. Elenlinde looked in dismay across the large barnyard. She had been through much and the yard was larger than the little vale she had come from. The young man noticed her consternation and, without asking, picked her up. She was no larger than his thumb.**

**He carried her through the doorway to his home and into a dark, oppressive room. Elenlinde smelt something she had never smelt before. Instinctively she knew what it was. It was the smell of lost hope and shattered dreams, the smell of love gone and death waiting.**

**There was a cold, gloomy bed in the corner. The woman in it was old. She was not dead, yet Death stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder, ready to take her away. Elenlinde felt herself fading again from the hopelessness that stood behind those aged eyes.**

**"What have you got there, Mirlynn?" An old voice quavered.**

**"This is a Wubble, mother. I found it by the feed trough." Mirlynn said softly. "You may speak to her. She will understand you."**

**"What is your name little one?" she asked. "Fenuilas I was, long, long ago. Now I am only old, only mother for the rest of my life."**

**"I am Elenlinde."**

**"Star Song," Mother laughed. "I knew that song long ago. When I was Fenuilas, I sang and danced in the meadows long into the night. I was young and happy. Those days are over now for me."**

**"They are not over. I will sing the song for you. You will join in and once again, you will be Fenuilas." Elenlinde sang a song full of unspoken words. The room brightened, the hearth fire crackled along merrily to itself, a bird sang from the window ledge and Death went outside the door because he could not stand the cheery atmosphere. Mirlynn smiled for the first time since Elenlinde arrived. She decided she rather liked it.**

**Fenuilas stood from her bed and cooked for the very first time since Death had come and Fenuilas was lost. That night, they all slept well.**

**Elenlinde felt a curious sensation as she slept, a sensation that filled her with happiness and contentment. When she woke the next morning, she saw that she had grown.**

**Mirlynn jumped when he saw her. She was now as long as his forearm.**

**"What happened?" he asked. "Mother, come here." Fenuilas too was startled.**

**"A Wubble is born with only one purpose. When it has been fulfilled, we have no other. It must take a different form and a different purpose. When a Wubble outgrows its purpose, it becomes a Pixie." Elenlinde smiled. "My purpose was to bring hope and life to someone who had none. Now, through you, I have done it."**

**"Do you know your new purpose?" Fenuilas asked.**

**"Yes, first of all, to know you and your beliefs. The second, I cannot tell you." Fenuilas and Mirlynn accepted her words without question. From then on, she was one of the family. **

**Elenlinde learned of Elra, the God who had created the sun, moon and stars. He was the one who had taught her to sing before she was awakened in her little flower. She soon learned to speak with him and to love him. He taught her new songs, songs of wind and sea, moon and sun. He deepened her understanding of stars and trees and flowers and he deepened her understanding of him. He taught her how to love and how to rejoice. Never again did she feel the fading of feeling. She no longer needed the grove. Pixies are meant to live outside, free from a community, alone but for the people they chose to help.**

**Every night, she sang the new songs she had learned. Happiness filled her new home and Death was kept at bay. Mirlynn smiled more each night and soon learned to live, laugh and love once again. Elenlinde often watched his face, seeing the joy that was reflected there. Soem of her songs were meant for him. Fenuilas learned the songs too and danced while Elenlinde sang them. Her face was filled with hope and joy and it seemed she was young again.**

**Then, one dark night, he came. Death could not be kept out any longer. It was not the same Death who had come before. He was a hopeful Death, not hopeless and desolate. That night, Elenlinde sang her best. She sang the song she had sung her first night in their home. Death gently gathered Fenuilas' soul into his arms. Fenuilas smiled in greeting, this time ready for his coming. Elenlinde sang of hope as Death carried Fenuilas through the window to the home of Elra.**

**The song was over. Elenlinde ran to the meadow to gaze at the stars. Mirlynn was too grief stricken to follow.**

**"Why, Elra? Why did you have to take her?" Elenlinde cried to the wind as she reached the very center of the meadow. "I have fulfilled my purpose. My life is over and I don't want to leave this family." She sobbed, her tear streaked face shining in the moonlight. Then, he was there, Elra, the God who had brought her there in the first place.**

**"Why do you weep, little daughter?" His whisper was the voice that spoke the wind. "Does this family mean so much to you?"**

**"Yes, Mirlynn's mother is gone. He will mourn for her and there will be no one to comfort him. I need to stay here. Maybe my one purpose is gone but I feel there is still more I must do. Fenuilas may not need me any more but Mirlynn does. I care for him too much to leave him desolate at the time when he needs me most." Elenlinde wept.**

**"Would you like a new purpose to fulfill?" Elenlinde lifted up her face in hope as Elra spoke those words. "I would need to give you a new form, and your purpose will take many thankless years. It won't be as easy as the two I gave you before. You need to promise me that you will stick to it."**

**"I am willing to spend years if I can spend them with Mirlynn. I promise that I will never give it up, no matter how hard it gets. What must I do?" Elenlinde said with firm resolve.**

**"Sing Elenlinde, sing until you can sing no more." He was gone and she began to sing. The sound filled the air. Mirlynn heard her song and was comforted in the depths of his loneliness. Tiffie heard the smallest whisper of song threading through the trees that surrounded their enchanted glade and wondered what she had lost when she allowed Elenlinde to be sent away. The Wubbles stopped their silent dancing to listen to the beauty of the sound. They cried for the hope they had lost, the hope they did not know how to regain.**

**Elenlinde sang for hours and when dawn began to streak the horizon with light, she slept, exhausted, the bare earth her only pillow. She needed no blanket for the breath of Elra was still upon her.**

**Mirlynn came to find her before long. His tears were spent. He could not weep longer for he had seen the look of joy on his mother's face when she had gone. Now, he searched for Elenlinde, the only member of his family that remained.**

**She lay beneath a little, flowering bush. He hesitated to disturb her at first. She looked so young and vulnerable in sleep. Her black hair half covered her slender face. Her sooty eyelashes made little shadowed half moons on her rosy cheeks. Her full lips were curved softly in a half smile. His own smile, the smile that Elenlinde loved to see, spread slowly across his face. The fact that she was now human was not lost on him.**

**She stirred and opened her eyes to find him watching her. She smiled in answer to his when she saw the form Elra had given her. The light in her eyes was no less than when she had been a Wubble; the inner hope gleamed through her eyes in the same way it always had.**

**"You fulfilled your purpose." Mirlynn said in an effort to break the silence that stretched between them.**

**"Yes," Elenlinde smiled, her heart in her eyes.**

**"What was it?" he asked tenderly.**

**"It was to bring Death to your mother without fear, to take away the sting and to give hope of eternal life. Elra did not want your mother to die without hope. He wants no one to die that way," she said softly. A tear glistened on her cheek and fell on their clasped hands. Elenlinde did not know when he had reached for them. "I did not want your mother to die. I loved her too."**

**Mirlynn sat beside her, contemplating. "You have a new form. Were you also given a new purpose?"**

**"I was, but Elra has not told me what it is to be."**

**"I think I know." Elenlinde looked at him, puzzled. He grinned at her. "Are you ready for this? Your new purpose. . .to be my wife, have my children and sing them to sleep every night until you are old and gray. You will be my other half, my comfort in grief and always my greatest joy. I love you. I tried to deny it because you were a Pixie and I knew you would be gone once you fulfilled what you came to do, but there is no need to hide this any longer."**

**Elenlinde stared at him, a little surprised and more than a little confused. The moment stretched into many as Elenlinde just stared into Mirlynn's eyes. He knew he had to break the moment if he wanted her to answer. Mirlynn took her in his arms and softly kissed her. Elenlinde pulled back, realization finally dawning in her eyes, and whispered one little word.**

**"Yes!" and she began to sing.**


End file.
